She gestured to nothing in particular. “Why don’t you try telling all this to old man Vance—see how he takes it. See if he buys it.”

“He won’t, huh? You think? Even though it’s all true?”

“Even though it’s all true.”

I laughed softly. “I wonder if you were the one who came up with this whole crazy scheme—the hit-and-run farce outside where you worked…knocking off anybody who could cause the future Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Colby grief, like a blackmailing dominatrix and a boyfriend who battered you…Gino had it coming, did he? Maybe that’s where it started. Getting back at a guy who liked to give his girl a black eye. Guess I’ll never know, ’cause you sure as hell won’t tell me.”

Her chin came up again. “You’re right. I won’t. But I will tell you one thing.”

“Please do.”

She held up the hand with the huge rock glittering on it. “I was a waitress for a long damn time, Mike. I had acting dreams that went bust and the only one that came true at all was landing the hostess gig at that stupid chophouse. When I saw how much Vincent was into me…how the rich, so rich Vincent, had such a thing for me… how much he wanted me…how obsessive he was about having me…I said to myself, ‘Sweetie, you finally caught a break.’”

“Sure,” I said. “And it didn’t matter that you’d originally thought of Vincent as a stalker. You knew once you married him, he’d self-destruct before too long. And if he didn’t, well, you could always expose him as a murderer.”

She was nodding. “I could, yes. And if he didn’t get himself killed somehow, he’d be institutionalized. What you call ‘Plan B.’ Either way, I’d be set for life. The old man isn’t going to live forever. Till then, I’ll be on Easy Street. Until the whole damn fortune is mine.”

How much he had heard I couldn’t be sure—he might have been just outside the door. But I knew he’d stepped inside the room and heard her say, “Even though it’s all true,” and everything that followed.

Vance Colby didn’t get my full attention until he was a few feet away and his hand came up and had the small gun in it, a little .22 S & W Escort; before that, he’d just been a distinguished mustached little man wearing sorrow like a coat of dripping gray paint.

She didn’t see him.